Exploding Kittens Becomes Third-Highest Kickstarter Funded Project

Exploding Kittens is a card game that is now the third-biggest crowdfunded campaign on Kickstarter.

With an initial funding goal of just $10,000, Exploding Kittens went on to attract over 200,000 backers and in the process raise $8.8 million in funds. The game that promises a mix of “kittens and explosions and laser beams and sometimes goats” is also now the highest funded game on the website, taking the throne of the previously Android-based console Ouya.

The game is created by Elan Lee (Xbox, ARGs), Matthew Inman (The Oatmeal author), and Shane Small (Xbox, Marvel). In Exploding Kittens, players take turns drawing cards until an exploding kitten is is drawn – which ends the game.

Players can peek at the cards before drawing them, forcing their opponents to draw multiple cards or shuffle the deck. According to the developers, the game is a “highly strategic kitty-powered version of Russian Roulette.”

“On the very first day of this campaign, we hit our funding goal. That was a big deal. But after that, the campaign stopped being about money, and started being about a community,” the developers wrote in an update.

Exploding Kittens is due for release in July. Over 15,000 backers have went with the $20 bundle or more for its basic deck, while over 200,000 have paid $35 for the “NSFW Deck” which includes bonus cards that aren’t “kid friendly.”